Computer aided design systems (often called CAD systems) have been used for years to help engineers, technicians, and architects design a wide variety of items and products. CAD users are able to utilize such computer programs to design projects ranging from small mechanical parts that will be machined from metal stock to automobiles, airplanes, bridges and multiple-story high-rise office buildings and hotels to be built by huge teams of contractors and workers. Today, CAD systems are available that are able to model and manipulate, in real-time, very large numbers of interrelated parts or components in both two-dimensions (2D) and three-dimensions (3D).
Many computer programs are commercially available that tailor the basic CAD framework for specific engineering purposes. For example, AutoSPRINK®, developed and sold by M.E.P. CAD, Inc. (assignee of the present invention), is a stand-alone computer aided design program for use in automating the design of a building control system, such as a sprinkler system or an HVAC system. Such specifically tailored CAD programs are able to run on widely available personal computers running popular operating systems like Microsoft®Windows®. Such a program allows a user to visualize, in three-dimensional space on his or her desktop computer, the available design space, such as a specific floor of a high-rise building, so that the user may lay out piping, ducts, electrical traces, cable trays, etc.
The use of CAD software applications, such as AutoCAD® by Autodesk, Inc., is well known in the art. CAD software is often used by architects and engineers to prepare a CAD model or models representing different physical objects, such as a mechanical device, a bridge, a building, an automobile, and airplane, etc. Such objects include many different parts. A building typically includes its structural components, including the beams, columns, walls, floors, windows, doors, etc. (the “frame”). The bigger and more complicated the building, the greater the likelihood that CAD software, either 2D or 3D, will be used to do the design. The design of a building is also a collaborative and iterative process. After the frame is designed by architects and structural engineers to create a CAD drawing of the building, the building drawing is then sent to other designers or subcontractors to add their components to the building design, including HVAC ducting, plumbing layouts, electrical components and fire sprinkler lines etc.
Many of these designers will use the CAD program in which the building drawing was originally created, sometimes using add-on programs that were designed for their industry, i.e., plumbing, electrical, HVAC, etc., to add their components. Additional programs, such as AutoSPRINK® could be used to both create the base drawings and to add subcontract designs, such as fire sprinkler systems. Programs such as AutoSPRINK are capable of importing or exporting different types of CAD files.
To move the design of subcontracted components along as quickly as possible, the subcontractors often work on their modifications to a building design in parallel to one another. The parallel modified CAD drawings produced by the subcontractors are then combined to create a complete design. While faster in some ways, this parallel process creates conflict problems, such as where a plumbing line input by one subcontractor conflicts with an HVAC duct input by another. Hence, extensive design review and meetings to identify and correct conflicts are often required.
JetStream™ software, formerly produced by NavisWorks Ltd. and now owned by Autodesk, Inc., is an example of a collaborative design review product for 3D designs that works in conjunction with AutoCAD and that is intended to simplify the conflict correction process. For example, it has the ability to identify where conflicts or clashes exist and can generate reports of all of the conflicts and distances by which each conflict occurs. The subcontractor that created the conflict would then be expected to resolve it and submit a new drawing, but this is not as simple as it sounds.
In a large drawing, there may be hundreds of different conflicts created by many different subcontractors. Moving a pipe, duct or cable tray to resolve one conflict, may simply create more conflicts. Likewise, simply knowing the distance by which a conflict occurs does not provide the subcontractor with all of the information necessary to completely resolve the conflict for any given area and not create others. Furthermore, even though a subcontractor may only be responsible for a handful of conflicts, that subcontractor would typically be sent the entire drawing with all of the different subcontractor conflicts and a video and/or a conflict report, and be expected to find their conflicts and resolve them. As a result, a first conflict resolution meeting or design review will often be followed by many more conflict resolution meetings as the correction of one set of conflicts can generate many more. Thus, even though programs like JetStream can be helpful, they present less than a complete solution.
As these CAD drawings are very large and contain a large number of pipes, ducts, vents, sprinklers, etc., it is desirable to have a computer program identify and then resolve a large number of conflicts all at once. It is also desirable to have a computer program that can automate various time-consuming drafting procedures, such as choosing which type of pipe to use for a specific purpose or choosing which pipe to connect a vast array of sprinkler heads to.